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Space travel
Each of the Big Seven has been traveling the galaxy, and each has learned to traverse the verse. Several different means of doing this have been used, but today, some are much more popular than others. Generational Ships The Androsi were the first of the species to leave their star system. They did this with their big generational ships. Shove twenty or so couples onto a star ship, shove them towards a neighboring star as fast as one can manage, and hope there's enough genetic diversity to survive the trip and subsequent colonization or return. They didn't encounter any other races in their explorations on their own. Sleeper Ships Most of the Big Seven has, at some point in their past, experimented with suspended animation, mostly around the 20th or 21st centuries, but with little success. That is except for the Gielians. Due to their insect-like bodies, entering and recovering from cryo-storage was substantially easier. So they began exploring their region of space rather early. But this was before any kind of fast travel was discovered. They were limited to 15-20% of the speed of light. So it took on the order of a scores of years to visit even their nearest systems. By the end of the 21st century, they had made first first contact with the Razudans, because the Gielians had received a very large and very clear electromagnetic signal from the Razudan multiscope. With the help of the Razudans, the Gielians later made first contact with the Androsi on their sleeper ships. Sky Drive Meanwhile, on the other side of the galaxy, the Up Metals of the Malev have been studying the nature of our space. While they are three-dimensional beings like the rest of the Big Seven, they were able to first construct devices which were able to determine how our space is folded in on itself. They had created some devices which were able to accurately measure the gravitational potential energy of a given point in space, or from a given direction. Some of their tests, produced what they thought were slightly erroneous results in the delay expected. It meant that the distance between most places was slightly smaller than expected. As these similar tests were performed off of their planet, they discovered that the further they traveled from Edderick the smaller the "gravimetric" distance was between two points. With additional study, they were able to map these distances rather accurately within the Mejan System. The measurements showed that though these differences were erratic and chaotic, the further they were from a gravitational well (like a planet or a star), the greater the disparity between the gravimetric distance and the physical distance. By the beginning of the turn of the milenium, Malevian scientists had discovered a way to get particles to travel the shorter distance. They worked at getting larger and larger objects to travel by this method, but it required prodigious amounts of energy. Conventional fusion reactors could not produce anywhere near the amount required. The answer came from experiments with super-heavy elements. Malev scientists were synthesizing elements in the , and found that had a half-life of several million years. Far heavier than any other known stable atom, unibihexium-310 exhibited bizarre quantum properties. When subjected to the correct forces, an atom of unibihexium-310 has a very small chance of spontaneously "flipping" from matter to antimatter. The antimatter would then collide with a nearby regular atom, converting both of them entirely to energy. A lot of energy. Dubbed Antium (symbol An), the process of synthesizing and flipping Antium was quickly streamlined, and enough Antium was created to make the first antimatter reactor, which put out several orders of magnitude more power then the most efficient fusion reactor of the previous era. Reactor designs grew more and more efficient, and by the middle of that century the Malev were finally able to power ships big enough to hold themselves and the transport mechanism. The scientists dubbed it the Sky Drive. Because of the chaotic nature of our space, travel near a planet was impossible. Minor fluxuations in the continuum frequently left the ship stuck in the planet. Even gravity wells of small astroids were chaotic enough to add substantial risk. On the other hand, after leaving the Mejan System, the risk was low, and the speed at which they could travel was great. By the beginning of the 22nd century, the universe seemed much smaller. They quickly investigated the Razudan multiscope, which had been bothering them with strange signals for over 100 years. The Razudans were living happily with the Androsi and the Gielians. The Gielians had since sent ships to the more distant races, but the Sky Drive made travel to make first contact with the Humans and the Aryss possible. All modern travel is done with the technology of the Sky Drive. Because the gravimetric distance doesn't actually change much between two points, the sky drive technology itself hasn't improved much, but energy requirements to begin transport, and the accuracy of calculations has increased some. See also Gravimetric Category:Technology